If you care about stray cats (and other animals) please take them home or find someone who can take care of them. Don't feed stray animals.
Feeding stray animals will increase their population beyond the capacity of the surrounding environment, and therefore overhunting their preys. You're just killing wild birds unnecessarily.
Plus it will make the stray cats less afraid of humans. Humans are the most dangerous creatures ever. The fact that one human feeds them doesn't make it otherwise. Learning to avoid humans is generally good for them.
I suppose if you want them to eat regularly without bringing them in your home, taking them to a vet to get spayed/neutered before releasing them back outside works just as well at keeping populations down. I'm sure cats regularly fed on tuna and salmon are eating fewer birds and squirrels too.
That said, probably still best to get them indoors where they don't have to worry about being hit by cars or attacked by other animals or any of the other harms in the wild... although it's hard to say if every cat would choose to trade sunshine and freedom for the extra safety and comfort. They are barely domesticated animals that evolved to live outside after all.
> I suppose if you want them to eat regularly without bringing them in your home, taking them to vet to get fixed before releasing them back outside works just as well at keeping populations down.
If by "get fixed" you mean to neuter them then maybe. But most people who feed feral dogs/cats are just feeding them because... because they want, or their gut feeling says it's the right thing to do.
I'm not saying if you feed wild cats you're literally Satan. But feeding wild animals needs responsibility. Actually it takes MORE responsibility than just having a house pet, because now your actions are affecting multiple lives instead of one.
But try telling that to the people who like feeding them. It'll just make them hide their feeding and the problem will persist.
I spent a lot of time a few years ago helping people trap and neuter their feral colonies, keeping the population under control with the support of the caretakers rather than fighting them.
Unfortunately, this won't solve the problem of feral cats, it only mitigates it. Culling doesn't really seem to work either though. Chemical sterilization is a promising approach, but hard to enact on large scale without sterilizing other species by accident.
